(Spoilers) About three weeks since I finished MGSV, here’s my opinion

[SlightlyJames]

Aye aye, I know, I’m back to talking about this game again. I felt that after all of the time I spent hyping the game in the lead up to its release I should offer my feelings now that I’ve spent a significant amount of time with it.

Being able to nail down an opinion on the game took some time, the reason being that it was so far removed from what I had built up in my mind that I was left reeling.

The largest deviation that The Phantom Pain makes from the standard Metal Gear Solid and something that permeates every aspect of its design is that it features an open world style of gameplay. This allows players to approach the various objectives presented throughout the game’s missions with a degree of freedom not found in any previous entry in the series.

Things like the time of day at which you begin an infiltration, the equipment you choose to develop and bring with you into the field, the support buddy who accompanies you and the amount of time you spend gathering information and marking out the obstacles laid before you are all able to shape your experience and create a unique challenge for each mission.

The game is a joy to play, easily some of the smoothest controls in any game of its type combined with the most satisfying stealth mechanics in the series make for wonderful in-the-moment gameplay. After 175 hours of play I’m currently nestled at 83% completion and still enjoying myself as I work towards 100%.

After waking from a 9 year coma and being confronted with the loss of your left hand, you’re thrust into a desperate escape from a hospital besieged by unknown enemies who want you dead. Dragged through a series of close encounters with deadly and supernatural foes by your mysterious benefactor Ishmael, you learn to control Snake just as he is learning to use his body again. It’s a thrilling opening for the game and it sets the stage for a grand tale of revenge.

Once Snake has escaped the hospital the game opens up, presenting the player for the first time with all of the freedom I detailed before. Unfortunately, it’s at this point that the narrative goes downhill.

While the move towards non-linear design has done a lot to enhance the gameplay it has also limited the potential to tell a compelling story through gameplay. The attention to detail and nuanced presentation of the prologue is no longer possible when the player has the degree of freedom that they do in the core game, everything is thrown off.

To provide an example, there is a mission in the game where Snake is tasked with infiltrating an oil field and shutting down their operations. Following the route the developers expected you to take, you would encounter a group of child soldiers undergoing training. You would have the opportunity to extract the children, removing them from that environment or alternatively turn a blind eye continue towards your objective.

Later down the road you would pass through a village that had been destroyed by conflict, nothing more than rubble and charred corpses. It’s a shocking image that hammers home the monstrous effect that the war economy Snake created has had on the world.

The problem is I never saw any of that my first time through. I just ran in the other direction through a swamp and arrived at the oilfield none the wiser. The absence of focused, linear design meant I bypassed that without even knowing it.

Previous entries in the series have been criticised by some as being far too reliant on extensive, expository cutscenes to deliver the story. In response to that criticism, cutscenes in this game are few and far between, seldom lasting longer than a couple of minutes. The lion’s share of the story in this game is delivered through optional cassette tapes that can be listened to at the leisure of the player.

On paper that’s an interesting solution, sadly it hasn’t worked. Too often I’m taken out of the experience when I have to sit in the chopper and force myself through an explanation of how Huey’s mechanical legs work. In theory you can listen to the tapes when you’re tackling a mission but all too often Kaz or Ocelot will chime in with some radio support that plays over the cassette and makes you miss potentially important information.

Disjointed is probably the word I’d use for this narrative. It doesn’t feel like a cohesive story because of the shortcomings in presentation and this is compounded by the fact that a select few storylines, even including the hijacking of Metal Gear and escape of Eli, are never resolved in the game.

Boss fights are an area in which this series has excelled, though here they are in short supply. The encounter with the sniper Quiet is so sudden and comes out of nowhere. It’s a gripping fight that introduces one of the best characters in the game.

Finally being able to take on Metal Gear was brilliant as well. Being chased around the map by this behemoth was honestly one of the most thrilling fights I’ve had in any game, it’s legitimately intimidating, the sheer size of ST-84 striding across Afghanistan towards you is one of the most striking visuals in the entire game. But that’s it. There were two boss fights of any value, the only other offerings were a handful of encounters with the Skulls.

There are a collection of outstanding moments in the game. From the horror of exploring and later escaping the Devil’s House, the wonderful grandiose performance of Skull Face, having to execute your own soldiers as they salute you, slowly uncovering Huey’s treachery culminating in his exile and watching the anguish in the face of Quiet as she reaches the conclusion she has to forfeit her life to save yours.

If there was something more substantial to tie these things together it would be one of the finest experiences in gaming history but all too often it feels like filler. It’s devastating to think of what this game should have been.

In the end, despite being polished to a mirror sheen and featuring the best gameplay in the series, Metal Gear Solid V is an experience that will forever be defined by what is absent from the game. After reaching the end of the story it’s all too clear that this game is less than what it was supposed to be, and that is devastating. The Phantom Pain is an absurdly appropriate title.

[SortaCreative]

I literally wrote this post at the same time you did so i'm posting as a reply. I've not read yours, going to read it now. xx

Edit: I agree with most of James' points. His post reads like a better version of mine. He's the Big Boss to my Kaz. I'm angry as fuck. BUT JAMES. HE'S THE ENEMY. AND HE'S ON HIS KNEEEEEESSSSSSSSS

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I've played every Metal Gear Solid game as they've come out. It's been a franchise that has been around my whole life. It's always been there and there was always the prospect of another one to come. What drew me to Metal Gear was the gameplay, the story (mainly because of how cheesy and utterly mental it was) and the tone in which that story was told. It had this unique blend of being able to talk about world dominating conspiracy theories while a scientist pissed his pants and then gave you a fist bump, complete with close up of said fist bump and a satisfying sound of the leather gloves tightening. I won't sit here and tell you that I can make sense of every detail in the story. I do, however, think I have a pretty good grasp on the overall narrative themes and the themes each specific game deals with.

The gameplay in MGS games is key. It's always been tight and MGSV is no different. The actual moment to moment gameplay of sneaking, disposing of guards and infiltration is wonderful. It's the best it's ever been. The graphics are great, the engine is great and well optimised. The controls felt good. Technically, this game was amazing. But that's really where it ends for me.

The Motherbase portion of the game felt fine. I didn't really think there was enough to do at Motherbase other than beat up some of your guards. It felt like a chore to navigate and subsequently I didn't really go back much (which ofcourse meant I may have missed special cutscenes and hidden rooms with characters in them). The motherbase interface was okay. It felt like I needed two too many clicks to get anything done at times. The R&D system was okay too. I didn't like how I had to wait for certain things to be developed and the trees were stupidly set out with a lot of wasted space. The amount of time I had to wait was actually a massive annoyance for me. Why 18mins or 2 hours? Why any time at all, if we were going to use time, why add in prerequisite requirements too?

The presentation was off. Cutscenes were few and far between, something which was a staple in every Metal Gear game until this one. I understand people don't like the length cutscenes but if it was really a problem they would have left the series a long time ago. Yes, cut them down a little but not to the extent that Kojima did. They barely happened, when they did I got so into them that they ended way sooner than I wanted them too. Some I didn't even see because I never went back to Motherbase (because I had no reason too, I had to do everything from the ACC).

Performance and voice acting were great and bad at the same time. Troy Baker managed to make Ocelot the most boring character in the game. Kaz was laughably angry that he took me out of any cutscene he was in. Kefer was great at Snake when he actually spoke three words strung together. Most of the time Snake doesn't say anything.

And finally the story, the massive flaw in this game. I'm not talking about the ending. I actually think it makes a certain amount of sense but my problems with it aren't just about the ending. There's a massive section in the game where almost nothing happens. You get sent on missions because of Cipher-reasons and you have to do something. The gameplay is fun but the mission design is shockingly bad. The Ground Zeroes mission is better than any portion of this game. It almost felt like 10 hours of those missions could have been taken out (or god forbid 10 hours of better narrative context for those missions could have been added in). From about mission 13 - 24 (? the Code Talker mission) it just feels boring. It's a routine of:

Jump in the chopper (from the ACC not Motherbase because fuck you for wanting to prep and launch missions from your base).
Watch the intro credits
Listen to Kaz angrily tell you about Cipher and why you need to care.
Go to location
Do the mission (generally kill/secure someone)
Run out/wait for chopper extraction
Get an S rank somehow.

I really do not understand how this game is being heralded as one of the best games ever made when everything outside of the moment to moment sneaking/shooting gameplay is jank.

We're entering spoiler territory now:

Show Spoiler

Don't get me started on "parasites". It's as bad as nanomachines and it just felt like a cop out. If these parasites are so dangerous why did we never hear about them ever again? This is the problem with creating prequels. We never hear about Skull Face, Sahelanthropus or vocal cord parasites ever again. And that's fine, I don't expect them to have that much foresight but don't try to make them be the biggest and baddest threat when they simply can't be. Focus on what people actually care about: the relationships built up in MGS3, Peace Walker and Ground Zeroes.

This isn't the missing link. This isn't the story of how heroes become villains. This is the story of someone else. A random person. I get the reason. The medic is an analogue for us. We helped grow Big Boss (i.e Metal Gear) so we're apart of the legend, yay us. We get the missing links we wanted in cassette tape dumps at the end. And i'm still left wondering how Big Boss goes from what we see in MGS3 to what we know happens in MG2. Yes, we skirt a line in Peace Walker and MGSV but skirting a line isn't the same as being the missing link.

Chapter Two was an utter joke. The whole setup of having to do repeat missions or side ops until the game lets you carry on just screams of cut content. The whole thing feels hollow. What we saw in the trailer is actually all you got (infact you saw scenes that aren't even in the game). And it was just a limp fart rather than the grand exit this game was meant to be and was advertised to be.

I enjoyed my time with it but I can't see me ever playing it again (I play MGS3 and 4 yearly). Because it was a chore, it felt hollow and after such a frustrating experience the end just soured me completely. I felt let down, massively. And that's a shame. How I felt finishing this game was how I felt after watching The Battle of the Five Armies (which is the best example i can give to people who aren't MGS fans). The fact that after all that time, that was it.

And it's not like Hideo couldn't end it right. MGS4 ended things really well imo.

[SlightlyJames]

Regarding the end discussion just now in the chat, figured I'd throw down some thoughts on that too as I sort of omitted it from my original post.

There are two ways I generally look at the ending. One considers the implications of exactly what we see and the other ventures into theory crafting territory, I read something along those lines and really dug the implications.

If Snake does indeed go along with the deception of allowing The Medic to become his Phantom, shifting the burden of carrying his legacy as well as being subject to all of the danger that Snake had coming to him then that paints the real Snake in a very negative light. It feels very out of character, even if he is merely going along with Zero's plan he does so very nonchalantly, casually joking with Ocelot about forgetting a cigar and then riding off into the sunset, scot-free.

We already know from Peace Walker that Snake has committed to a world of eternal conflict. When he accepts that The Boss had put down her gun in favour of Peace he rejects her legacy, discarding her bandana and accepting the title of Big Boss. He feels that he has surpassed her will by carrying on the fight where she did not.

It doesn't make sense to me that Snake would go along with a deception like the one we see in The Man Who Sold The World. It's not in his nature to abandon the fight, that's why I like to entertain the idea that the Snake we control in The Phantom Pain is in fact the real one.

The basic outline of the theory I subscribe to is that Snake doesn't suddenly "remember" the events of the prologue as they actually happened. The supposed "truth" from Episode 46 is the real deception, employed by Snake's damaged psyche to distance himself from the events of The Phantom Pain. He's done so already in the game, inventing a false scenario where Paz survived the events of Ground Zeroes because the trauma of what happened is too much for him to bear.

After seeing what his creation (The War Economy) has led to in the destruction of the African village, the employment of child soldiers, the events of Shining Lights, executing his own terrified soldiers as they looked to him and saluted in the face of death, staring into the face of Quiet as she broke her vow of silence and forfeit her life in order to guide Pequod to his rescue, Snake can't handle what has happened so he fabricates a scenario where the real Big Boss never returned to Mother Base, that the one experiencing this torment is merely a phantom while the real thing is off, untainted, striving to create the idealistic Outer Heaven.

Snake is mentally ill and the reason that the game doesn't showcase the descent into villainy that many were expecting is that Snake is refusing to acknowledge that it's happening.

That's the jist of it, it's not air tight but it's a fun idea to throw around, innit?

[Chewy]

Is Otacon or Raiden in it?

[SlightlyJames]

Is Otacon or Raiden in it?

Otacons dad is

[Chewy]

Is Otacon or Raiden in it?

Otacons dad is

Is he an annoying cunt like his son?

[SlightlyJames]

Is Otacon or Raiden in it?

Otacons dad is

Is he an annoying cunt like his son?

he's more annoying, but that's the point this time

[Chewy]

Is Otacon or Raiden in it?

Otacons dad is

Is he an annoying cunt like his son?

he's more annoying, but that's the point this time

Then I'm not getting this. Otacon can eat a massive dick, he's the jar jar binks of the franchise.

[SortaCreative]

Regarding the end discussion just now in the chat, figured I'd throw down some thoughts on that too as I sort of omitted it from my original post......

It's a fun idea and I think I would have preferred something like this. I mean, you start getting into the murky territory of well technically it did happen. Big Boss did all those things you mentioned because Venom is Big Boss. But I can see that you mean Naked Snake, the original Big Boss creating a pseudo identity to distance himself from the adverse side effects of his operations. But the question becomes, why not tell anyone then?

I quite liked the idea of there being the legend and the man. It's true for any larger than life characters. There's always some fabrication that goes along with their reputation. I kind of wished that Chapter 1 had been Ground Zeroes. Chapter 2 had been the Skull Face saga and Venom Snake creating Diamond Dogs to combat him with the reveal at the end. And then we could have had an epilogue to book end the main portion of the game where you played as Naked Snake rather than Venom again. I actually think doing something like that as well as making it a linear game, with each level being essentially one of those large outposts that you could approach as you wanted, would have just made for a better game. A large portion of the mission from Chapter 1 in TPP could have been taken out to streamline the story and reduce the grind. It would have been nice to play up to the point where Ocelot and Miller essentially pick a Snake and it's left there to hint that Big Boss will eventually have Venom dealt with or set his sights on the Zanzibar uprising.

Jack essentially still needs a game to really flesh out where his character goes. How does he feel about Zero's plan regarding the Phantom. From what we can see, he seems alright with it. Oh that's kind of cool, some random person who's life I just essentially erased can do the grunt work for me (which is what we essentially do in the game) while I do... something. What was that something? Was that something connected to getting back into Foxhound? How does that happen? Why does Zanzibar happen? Does he have anything to do with the events in MG1? Or was that Venom working alone? Does Venom go out of control (as could be surmised from him being utterly covered in blood in full demon form as he punches in the mirror in Outer Haven).

I felt like that game had some great moments and they could have been the really stellar points in a linear game. As they are, they're the high points of an otherwise unfocused and meandering plot. All the stuff with Huey and Quiet are the high points of Chapter 1. I actually disliked the Eli stuff because of how it ended and it leaving a glaring open question. Chapter 2 had probably the best sections in the game, it was essentially the game we wanted condensed into a few missions. It dealt with the storylines we wanted to deal with rather than Skull Face who was lacklustre and really written to be a huge threat without him ever being shown as one. If we had the traditional layout of the previous games we might have seen more of his exploits and how he takes down Zero. How he gets information out of Paz through the oh so Metal Gear self serving monologue cutscenes.

As it is now, alot of the story we wanted happens in Chapter 2 and in cassette tapes. I'm forever baffled why the tapes couldn't have been codec calls. The codec calls served as a great way to give you a little story when things were on a down turn. They helped introduce character to characters in the game and the tapes just never managed to do that. The tapes were jarring because you heard conversations happen in real time when you really had no business hearing those. Who taped Zero? How did that tape end up with Snake?

For me the highlights of the game were the Paz hallucination and the Diamond Dog funeral. The Paz hallucination was especially powerful because it worked for both Big Boss and Venom Snake. When I still thought I was playing as Big Boss, it served as a potential holy shit moment to find out she lived and then it served as a really sombre moment to really underline the human life Big Boss is incapable of having. Loving someone, being with someone. For Venom Snake, it was this weird dual identity guilt trip that worked on a different level. It had the levels of him being turned into Snake and having a memory of loving this person and also the guilt because he was the medic and he didn't find the bomb (she so graphically rips out of herself). That was a real highlight for me and it was something you could have easily missed. I only saw it because I tried to do the target practice on that platform.

The DIamond Dog funeral was especially great because I felt like it was another awesome step in the character arc of Naked Snake to Big Boss to Zanzibarland Big Boss. Up until that point we'd had some controversial torture scenes, we'd had some iffy decisions in Peace Walker, Ground Zeroes and The Phantom Pain that were morally questionable. The funeral really took us one step further down that path. Big Boss was not putting his soldiers to rest, he was going to glorify them, essentially glorifying the conflict they died in and ultimately he'd eventually profit from them. Make diamonds from their ashes sounds poetically cool but the hard truth of it is those diamonds would eventually be sold. And that fucked up. It also helped that it was a well made cutscene and Kiefer puts in the best performance in the game. It's the only time the muted, quiet and observant Big Boss worked for me. It wasn't a place for fancy one liners. The tone was just right.

It's just a shame the game wasn't built to really tell the story of the Phantom and The Phantom Pain. It's a shame the characterisation was lost. The story took too much of hit for gameplay. It baffles me that after so many games, now was the time that Hideo decided to listen to his detractors and cut out the cutscenes and codec conversations. They were really needed and without them the game was left feeling hollow, shallow and pretty limp.

[War Daddy]

I wish I could keep with you guys

[SlightlyJames]

After 200 hours...



Storyline shortcomings aside that game was bloody excellent.